Surprising confirmation of gospel driven cultural obedience (GDCO)

Charles Murray is a controversial social analyst whose latest book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, covers a slice of history in America that spans a significant portion of my own life. This interview that provides a good introduction to Murray’s worldview.

Please consider watching the entire 34+ minute clip, so you can savor this articulate descriptive analysis whose crescendo begins at 31:37, leading to a startling denouement lasting from 33:16 until its peak at 34:25—I’ll explain why it’s startling after you listen to the interview.

Indeed, this is what it means to be living in a post-Christian culture: “The most impoverished part of all is they [members of the new lower class] don’t know there is anything better out there. We have kept that information carefully to ourselves.”

Charles Murray: “We have to address it [the cruelty of permitting deep cultural despair among the lower class] by a deep introspection and do what we most deeply believe about the sources of satisfaction in a human life.

Ronald Bailey: “And how do we transmit that [knowledge about the deepest sources of satisfaction in a human life]? We live it.”

Charles Murray: “We live it openly. And we don’t make it easy for people to live miserable lives.”

I’m not sure what Murray’s last statement means, but the Bailey-Murray exchange about living openly from the sources of our happiness—religion, family, vocation, and community—symphonizes well with the gospel driven cultural obedience that constitutes the preeminent “show and tell” form of the church’s cultural evangelism.

This Matthew 5:13-16 style will lead inevitably to a 1 Peter 3:15 encounter!